April 26, 2022

12:04

Iury Lima – Cenarium Magazine

VILHENA (RO) – A dispute over land may have motivated the most recent attack on the Surui people, which took place in Mato Grosso almost a week ago, on April 19 – precisely the date alluded to the struggle and resistance of Brazilian native peoples. The victims were the cacique Matera Suruí and two other leaders of the small and recently founded village Pagoa Hagoia.

It was on their way back from an event that they found most of their houses burned down; one house made of straw and two others made of wood. An “expulsion strategy”, according to Ivaneide Cardoso (Neidinha Suruí), president of the Kanindé Association for the Ethnoenvironmental Defense.

The suspicion is that it was a arson attack and, according to the residents, the community will appeal to the Federal Police (PF) and ask for an investigation into the case.

CENARIUM’s MAGAZINE report reached out to the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) to comment on the case. The entity said it had “received” the demand, but did not take a position. The Federal Police corporations, in Brasilia and in the state of Mato Grosso, also called, did not respond.

There are only 10 inhabitants living in the whole village, divided into four families. The indigenous home is located in Rondolândia (MT), on the border with Rondônia, 1,600 kilometers from Cuiabá.

Expelling in order to take possession

For Cardoso, the reason is clear: greed for the indigenous territory and the natural resources it protects, the preferred prize of loggers, miners, deforesters, and large landowners. The Surui people own a large portion of land, the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Land (TI), with almost 250,000 hectares and 28 recognized villages, between Rondônia and Mato Grosso.

“The region of the Pagoa Hagoia village is a place where there is a lot of pressure on the Indigenous Land and on the Surui people. The surrounding ranchers are pressuring the indigenous people to move away from the land,” reveals the indigenous woman and president of the Kanindé Association.

“The federal government promotes and defends leasing and mining. Therefore, the invaders will want to appropriate the indigenous territory and expel the indigenous people from there. They are in great danger,” added Ivaneide Cardoso.

‘Saved’ by an Event

According to the son of the cacique Matera Suruí, Nilson Mopilapalakar Suruí, the whistleblower of the attack, says that something worse only didn’t happen because the villagers were participating that day in an event held in the town hall of Ariquemes, a municipality in Rondônia about 200 kilometers from Porto Velho. The action, where the villagers performed, was celebrating the Day of the Indigenous Peoples. A ‘festive’ date that ended in sadness.

According to the leaders, the village had been founded recently and the residents were still acquiring equipment and materials to build new houses; information confirmed by Kanindé, an entity that promotes the defense of the traditional peoples of Rondônia and region. 

The indigenous people are counting the loss of various goods due to the fire, such as a recently purchased electric generator.